


The Connotation of Infinity

by RavensWing



Series: i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:37:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensWing/pseuds/RavensWing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'll wait for her forever, but he doesn't have that long.</p><p>Set after 04x01</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Connotation of Infinity

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a tribute to E.E. Cummings
> 
> Because the OUaT writers cannot get anything right, not that I can, but if Killian and Emma have an easy road to happy I am going to flip out.

He read a book where men were gods and now he thinks of Persephone every time he looks at her. Her eyes are harder and sadder than she should be with lips laced pomegranate red, stuck in perpetual winter. He doesn’t like to acknowledge that for his comparison to be accurate, for her to be light and life, that means that in her story he is darkness and death.

That isn't what he wants. He wants to be so much more for her, but he doesn’t know how. Rather - she won’t let him.

 _Be patient_. She pressed the words onto his lips, making them taste like his own.

 _Be patient_. She said, riddles and promises looking the same in this light.

 _Be patient_. As if he hasn’t been, as if he isn’t doing every in his power to keep a safe distance for her sake. As if he hasn’t forsaken his every nature of taking what he wants because she is worth it.

 _Be patient_ \- and he is trying - oh he is trying. That is why he is drinking alone at a bar. Patience has its price.

He drinks to forget the taste of her mouth, the feel of her, the shape of her face. He drinks because holding her close, so close, and having that be all was a special form of torture. He drinks because her face had been inches from his today, but he knew it was actually miles. He drinks because she let him hold her hand, but not her heart.

The door bursts open with enough force to draw attention. His gaze darts towards the sound, the motion.

He would recognize her silhouette anywhere. Backlit by a streetlamp, the hair around her head is a halo. The weight of the shadows push around him.

She scans the room, looking for someone. Her eyes are all business. No doubt she is already on her next mission, filling her time with everything but him. There is always someone else to save, but all he wants is to save her from herself.

Something dies in his chest when he realizes he doesn’t even hope that it is him she is looking for. He turns back to his drink.

He startles when a hand lands on his shoulder a moment later, insistent, only to flinch away the moment he turns. There she is in all of her glory. He drinks her in from stem to stern.

“Hey.” She shoves her thumbs into her pockets and rocks back a step - two. “I need to talk to you.”

She sought him out. That should be enough for his heart to swell, but there is no joy in it. She stands before him like this is war. It takes a moment for him to unravel the conflicting narratives in front of him, to pick the best strategy of approach his goddess.

“Of course, love.” He goes with agreeable and charming. He leans back against the bar like an invitation. “Talk away.”

The more he opens his body up to her, the more she closes down. Darkness rumbles in his chest.

“Alone.” She crosses her arms and he looks at his drink.

“Ah. I see.” He swirls the rum around the bottom of his glass. “And I suppose this is quite the pressing matter, isn’t it?”

Her lips tighten, but she jerks her head ‘yes’. He doesn’t like where this is going, but he’ll play along anyway. He’ll do anything for her.

“Well alright then.” He throws back the remainder of his drink and tosses some coin on the bar. “Lead the way, love.”

She does and he follows. He doesn’t want to walk behind her. He wants to come up along side her and lace his fingers through hers. He wants to slow her down because he can feel her running from him even now. He doesn’t because there are rules, rules he broke today by caring too damn much, and he is going to pay for that now.

The night air is cool. She shivers as they step into the alley behind The Rabbit Hole. His muscles twitch to hold her again, to bleed his warmth into her, but it clear she doesn’t want that. It is clear she doesn’t want him - and that hurts deeper every time.

Her arms stay crossed when she faces him, but he steps closer anyway. If she wants to run, he will chase. She stays rooted in place, but he sees her eyes shift worlds away.

“Well, love, now that you have me to yourself - you can have your way with me.” He smirks through the all too familiar pain already ripping through his chest.

She is not amused.

“Look, I just wanted to thank you for - earlier.” Words that could have been soft, but aren't. She is all business, but he wants her pleasure.

“I’ll admit, it was nothing like what I’d imagined for our second date.” His smile goes unreciprocated. “But under the circumstances, I suppose it will have to do.”

A muscle jerks in her cheek. He inches closer, pushing his luck, daring her to prove his instincts wrong. She looks down at her feet. His heart sinks.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what, love?” He already knows, but needs her to say it, knows she doesn't want to. If he is going to suffer she is going to suffer, too.

“You know what.”

“Not sure that I do.” He reaches out and touches her elbow in part to spite her for what he knows is coming, part because he needs to touch her. She shifts out of reach.

“Don’t do _that_.” Her fingers rub over where he touched like she could erase it, erase him.

The words sting, her touch more so, but it isn’t enough. He needs it to hurt more to walk away.

“What, love?” He steps closer still and he can smell her. She looks up at him, meeting his challenge, and if he slips forward one more inch he will taste her.

“Don’t try to be my boyfriend.” She says the word like a curse, aimed to hurt, and something cold grows in his chest.

“Ah. I see.” He does. He sees everything perfectly, even better than she does. “Apologies, princess.” He would have bowed, but they are still too close.

Her eyes flash. “Don’t call me that.”

“Lots of ‘don’ts’ in you tonight, aren’t there?” The hurt in his chest sinking lower, turning hot in his belly.

"Look, I appreciate everything you did for me today. I just don't want you getting the wrong idea about us." She says like she is doing him a favor, like she is saving him from herself.

"And what ideas could I possibly have when you kissed me after an ice monster attacked and fell into my arms upon being rescued from frosty death? I can think of a few if are in need of assistance.” He hates her high horse, so self-righteous, and tries to pull her from it.

“I was doing just fine before you and David bust in and caused Elsa to freak out and bury me alive in snow-ville.” She won’t go without a fight.

“Of course you were, love. Because working alone is what you do best, isn’t it? So big and strong, it is just all too easy to not need anyone but yourself. You just keep us around to make us all feel right as rain but really you’ve got this all by your onesie.”

He squares off, a worthy opponent, and sees the fear in her eyes. He’s caught her game and she knows it.

“I never said that.” Her eyes are wide, walls crumbling, as he steps into her, forcing her back against the brick behind her. That heat in his belly a full flame now, burning patience to oblivion.

“Didn’t have to, ducks.” He’s got his hook by her head on the wall, his other hand pressing her hip back hard. “Got the message loud and clear: Let her highness be the hero because heroes don’t need saving.” He leans in, lips by her ear before he whispers, “Can’t help but wonder though, if you don’t need saving, just what you do need.”

The hand on her hip wanders around to the fly of her jeans but meets no resistance as he pops the button.

“I didn’t come here for this.” She is trembling, this time not from cold. His hand slides into her pants and she is burning hot now. No shade of cold like earlier, but the need is there. Oh yes. it is, just in a different form.

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t want it.” His breath is heavy on her neck.

Just as his fingers find her cleft, her hand finds his wrist to stop him in place. He pulls his head back and stops even though everything inside of his screams to keep going.

“I didn’t come here for this.” She repeats, but it isn’t convincing.

He licks his lips and looks at hers. Hand frozen just above her entrance.

“I’m sure you didn’t.” He doesn’t move, so close he sees her in double, and dares her to make him stop. “I’m sure you could have done this for yourself, so independent. Can’t say I haven’t thought about you touching yourself, touching yourself and thinking of me.”  

She makes a sound, low and wanting, in her throat. The heat in his core shoots through his whole being, wanting more, but knowing he’s more than pushed his limits.

“Tell me to stop, and I will.” He will, he has to, but he doesn’t want to. His heart pounds a new tattoo on his chest. Emma, it will say, and he will wear it as truth till his dying day.

She doesn’t say anything, heavy breath her only answer, and his fingers inch forward. Her hold on his wrist loosens and he take a long sweep along her center. A shudder runs through them both. He’s imagined this moment a thousand times over, but it was never like this. It was never this good.

“Tell me to stop.” He says again, a cautionary tale against himself as he slicks a finger inside of her, two. She is so wet, hot, and ready - he is melting. “Afterall, I am nothing. I am nothing to you. You can do this all without me.” His breath burns the shell of her ear and she arches into him. “Tell me to stop.”

She doesn’t and he doesn’t until she slumps hot and boneless back against the wall. He wants to kiss her, wants to make it indisputable who left her breathless against in an alley, but he doesn’t. That is too real, too intimate, and he’s already pressed his luck. She’ll forgive him for this, but never for that.

He pulls his hand out of her and brings it up to his face, smelling her. He watches her eyes, wide and blown out, as he slips them in his mouth and sucks them clean.

“You taste like strawberries, love.” He says and that is enough to bring her to. She shoves at this shoulders and he stumbles back a step.

“You aren’t my boyfriend.” Her hands zip up her pants, eyes somewhere near his boots.

“Never said I was.” He hasn’t, but he wants to be.

“Good.” She presses back against the wall, as far from him as possible. “So we have an understanding?”

They don’t. They both know it, but that isn’t how this works. He knows it. She knows it .

“Of course, love.” He says, holding her taste on the back of his tongue.

“Good.” Her legs shake as she steps away from the wall, from him, and he likes it. “Wait till I am gone, then go back into the bar and don’t tell anyone about this.” She grabs at the pretense of control, back to him where she stands at the mouth of the alley.

His insides curl around those words with a hiss, but he’ll obey. He’ll obey because he loves her, and knows she could love him too, but not today.

“As you wish.” He says as she retreats under the warm glow of street lamps, leaving him to wait in the darkness.

_Be patient._

He will be, but he'll have his fun too.


End file.
